The Open Environmental Data Project (OEDP) is grounded in the belief that community-driven data projects serve a local purpose and have the potential to give voice to a community’s desire to describe itself with regards to its environment in regulatory, legal, and legislative decisions. 

At OEDP, we know that it’s difficult to maintain data projects on limited resources over time. We also know that it’s difficult to get this information to regulators and policy makers when and where it matters. At the same time, people who work with data in all levels of government are also interested in a more complete picture that community data projects offer. In fact, the Biden Administration has prioritized science based decision making and the use of local data [1] allowing for greater public recognition and community inclusion at all levels of government. Wherever you are in this conversation, we hear you -- and we’re building a Data Solutions Library to serve as a bridge between all data stewards and all data users. ‍

The Data Solutions Library will be a freely available and searchable space for data communications from community projects. The DSL is an open collaborative effort with the purpose of increasing the quality and depth of the data conversation to develop community specific metadata, include context and culturally relevant descriptions for use with data, and identify and remedy pain points in the process of community and government data interactions. We seeded The Data Solutions Library with information collected by OEDP from Data Dialogues and our other research on where communities can have the most impact with its data and other forms of cultural environmental information. We’ve been using the Data Solutions Library to write opportunity briefs and as a source for future pilot projects.

Who Participates and Who Benefits?‍

You are invited to make this your own. The Data Solutions Library is being developed to serve as: 

• A project space for communities and local governments to identify metadata that serves cultural use requirements and regulatory requirements.
• A searchable database of associated concepts offered by communities that can be used to write case studies and develop training materials
• Documentation that regulators can use to identify well constructed and maintained community-driven environmental data sets 
• A means of supporting efforts mandated under the Biden Administration
• An analysis space using to parse community feedback and experiences that were given verbally 
• A share space to recommend and encounter successful data use, engagement, and maintenance methods. ‍

The DSL is in prototype right now and will be released as a collaborative open project. If you are interested in adding to the development of the Data Solutions Library please contact us at info@openevironmentaldata.org using the subject line “Data Solutions Library”

[1] See Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crises at Home and Abroad and Memorandum on Restoring Trust in Government Through Scientific Integrity and Evidence-Based Policymaking